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Tag Archives: #DIY

I’ve told you how I started the Fast diet, right? Well I’m on it, and it’s not too bad! The principle of is to fast for two days a week eating only 500 calories and then eat whatever you want the rest of the days. And you can choose what days you want, and switch them around if you need to. One of the tips in the book suggested to fast from 2pm to 2pm. So I can have whatever for breakfast and lunch and then stop at 2 have a light dinner, sleep for a good chunk of it, then have a light breakfast and just wait until 2 to have lunch. So today I started getting a headache because I needed to eat, no big deal, that usually happens with me and as soon as 2 pm hit I cooked and ate the biggest burger stuffed with blue cheese! I was out of hamburger buns, so I used some bread, which turned out better. One of the secrets to a good burger is getting some of the fat that drains from the burger soaked up into the bread! Oh yeah!!!!! So since I cooked my burger in a cast iron skillet I had plenty of grease still in the pan and I placed both pieces of bread in there and soaked some up and then put them in the toaster! I probably have some grease at the bottom of my toaster but I don’t care because it was SO worth it! That was one delicious burger!!

Yesterday I partook in a 5k, which is part of my New Year’s resolution, to do one per month. (Picture added below) The last two have been close by and for charities that I would want to donate to, one was to help pay the medical bills for a local high school coach who has cancer. Yesterday’s was for the Turtle Wing Foundation in Schulenburg, a charity that helps the local community’s families that have children in need of special education. A family started it in honor of their son who had autism and passed away a year ago. I like the idea that my money is going to a charity other than signing up for some color run, not that there is anything wrong with them, it’s just they’re a company trying to make money other than a charity who needs it. Yesterday during the day I thought “boy, I feel great, I should walk tomorrow!” and then I woke up and my shins, sides, back (basically my entire body) are sore, so I think I’ll wait later in the week when the natives get restless. (and I’m less sore)

After that I planted the two tomato plants (Super Sauce and Honey Bunch) and jalapeño plant (Hot Big Guy). This I thought was going to need me to go Wal-mart to get some bigger pots, since I used the biggest ones I have to grow corn. Well Wal-mart was all out of big pots, except some really nice plastic ones that looked ceramic, however they were $23 a pop, and I didn’t want to do that. So I went to HEB and got some essential items, and while I was there I remembered that Speed had a bunch of 10 gallon buckets that I could drill holes in and use! I love it when I think of things and I don’t have to spend money!!! So when I got home I put on my “work” clothes and headed to the shop for some buckets (with all four dogs of course!) I grabbed three and headed back to the house to get my own cordless screw driver that Speed says is mine…..sure. So I then hunt around for a drill bit that would fit, and I found one, but it didn’t fit. So I knew I would have to go back to the shop. Speed wasn’t around so I had to call him when I couldn’t find anything. He informed me that I wouldn’t be able to use “my” drill and I would need to get another one that he has, I found one, got the size of drill bit for the holes I wanted to make in the bottom of the buckets and went back to the house. I had already planted one of the tomato plants before I remembered to drill the holes, so one bucket has holes on the side of the bucket instead of the bottom.

I gotta tell ya a little story that I can’t tell Speed, because he’ll just shake his head at me. So once I got the drill ready and the bucket was all cleaned out, flipped over, and ready for some holes. The bucket was easy to drill, like buttah, but when I would drill in I couldn’t just pull the drill back out, I had to flip the direction of the drill and un-drill out of the hole. When I got done with that one, I went to drill holes in the side of the one I had already planted, and nothing happened. “I’ll worry about that later” I thought, and moved on to the other bucket. This one was again difficult, the drill just slid around, and then I noticed that it had a slightly different pattern on the bottom so maybe it was different. Back to the shop I go for some buckets with the same pattern, which I didn’t find, so I decided I just needed to put some muscle into it. I had my entire body pressing on that drill into the bucket and I FINALLY got through, I went to switch it in the opposite direction to get it out and that’s when I found that I had it in the wrong direction this whole damn time!!!! I didn’t need to get new buckets! I needed to put it in the right direction goober!!! So once I figured that out I had no problem putting holes in that bucket, or in the side of the other one. Amazing how fast it works when it’s in the right direction! (Final pictures of my plants in buckets are below. Along with clips of the package of plants I got from Burpee)

This morning I found out that Annie peed on the carpet in my bedroom again. She did it yesterday along with a big pile of poop! Speed said he even let her out at night before he went to bed. Maybe it’s because of the fact that every time she goes outside Busy is there to start wrestling/playing with her so she can’t get her business done. Needless to say I’m tired of cleaning up pee, and had luckily bought another can of 409 carpet cleaner. This obviously annoys the crap out of me and gives me another reason to get rid of the carpet! I would’ve started drinking earlier today if it wasn’t for the Fast Diet! But you can guarantee I’ll be having one after I post this!)

I’m thinking all this stress of not having a job, not knowing what I’m going to do with my life, missing my beloved Cleo, figuring out how to pay my bills without a job, and an unexpected collection of a pack of dogs has manifested itself into a nasty left bottom eye lid twitch. It started last night while I was watching TV, I remember going to bed thinking that surely it will go away by the morning, how wrong I was. I noticed it again this morning. It’s really small and I have to stay really still and get close in the mirror to see it. But that doesn’t matter, it bothers the fuck out of me and scares the crap out of me too! I really don’t want something like this to continue for days, or weeks, or months! I read that a twitch could last that long, and I REALLY hope that doesn’t happen! I’ll be honest I’m completely vain and don’t want my eye to twitch! The only reason why I quit smoking, was so I wouldn’t get yellow teeth or premature wrinkles! After having surgery in my right eye to add a stint so the pressure in my eye wouldn’t go up and damage my optic nerve, you can see a small piece of the implant, and my eye doesn’t open as wide as my left eye. (And I’m very expressive so this can be a problem, especially in pictures!) So now the only normal eye I have left has developed a twitch! There are many things that can start a twitch and I hope it’s just a pinched nerve in my back or something like that so it will ease over the next 24 hours and return to normal! If I get Botox I would have to do it in both eyes, so I wouldn’t be lopsided. I was hoping to get Botox for the crease in between my eyes before my birthday, not for a twitch! So let’s pray that it goes away pronto! Because I forsee me stressing about it which in turn makes it worse, which stresses me out more, which makes it worse…etc. (Sorta like that bad 80’s anti-drug commercial…”I do coke so I can work longer, so I can earn more, so I can do more coke, so I can work longer, so I can earn more, so I can do more coke…”) In the mean time I’ll try to keep my mind off of it….maybe a cocktail would help?

I think of so many things to write about but then I get busy, distracted, or my procrastination sets in. This is going to be a real quick one just to show what I’ve been up to.

I’ve been thinking about Thanksgiving and decorating the house. Well just decorating period, since we moved in the house less than two years ago and we only have the bare minimum. My mother wasn’t much of a decorator when it came to holidays. We really got into Christmas, but the other Holidays didn’t get much attention. I’ve taken a similar attitude but have decided that I want to do something, because I see all these fabulous easy ideas on Pinterest all the time! I saw a really simple idea on there; it was to take small pumpkins and put them in a vase and add black (or natural) branches. The vases I considered filling have a narrow part to them so I wasn’t sure that I would be able to arrange them to my liking. So I decided to take another idea that I saw on Pinterest and The Chew. While I was at the wonderful Hobby Lobby, I got two flameless orange candles that were 50% off. I then went to HEB and bought way too much popcorn kernels, small red beans, and split peas. And used only one bag each per vase (I have two) and then stuck the candle on top, and I wound up with this cute fall decoration:

I finally finished a sign that I made for a friend’s birthday. She’s a really good drinking buddy, and all around good person, and I’m glad to have met her. She also likes black, white, and pink, so those were the colors I planned on using. I had black and white scrapbook paper, I wanted to use pink and white, which I looked for, but couldn’t find (of course I found it after!) I then mod podged that to a scrap of wood that Speed had cut for me, and I sanded down. I made sure to scrap a plastic edge, like a credit card or a ruler over the paper to get the air bubbles out. I then first drew and then painted the words “Drinks well with others” in hot pink. I had to paint several coats to really cover up the black in the paper. That was when I really had wished I used the pink and white paper. After glueing the paper on, but before I painted on the letters, I stained the edges in black, purposely getting some on the corners of the front. After it was all done, I used some rustoleum clear acrylic spray to cover it all and give it a nice shiny coat. I attached some rings and wire on the back it and this is what I got:

Before the Acrylic:

The attachments on the back:

Right before I shipped it:

Here’s the sign with the light shining of off it so you can see how shiny the acrylic makes it:

I told my friend the only thing I would want to add would be a rhinestone martini glass.

I have more to come, a Thanksgiving ornament wreath and pics of Speed taking the previous owners sign off the main entrance.

Tomorrow I head off to the 36th Annual Lickskillet Days festival in nearby Fayetteville. Apparently the town had many previous names, before they settled on the one they have now. Many tourists coming late to the festivals would ask where all the food was, and the were told to “lick the skillet”, so the town became, for a while, Lickskillet. They’re having a hairy legs contest….I can’t wait!!